


Baby It's Cold Inside

by frubeto



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Fluff without Plot, Huddling For Warmth, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 06:14:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14158566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frubeto/pseuds/frubeto
Summary: Discovery's heating broke, and Hugh and Paul get a few hours to themselves. Even if it's not as uninterrupted as they'd hoped for.It's cold. They cuddle. You know the drill.





	Baby It's Cold Inside

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a stupid little thing I wrote for writing's sake, and because I was cold. Have fun.

* 1604 *

 

 

Paul Stamets stepped into his quarters to a blissful 15°C.

 

After their latest jump had left them dangerously close to an ion storm they only barely managed to escape from, thermal control was malfunctioning. Most of the ship's main areas had dropped dramatically in temperature and engineering was still working on fixing the problem.

There had been a second of panic that was almost mandatory whenever life support showed up on the damage report, but they had quickly managed to stabilize the situation and were eventually able to redirect heat to the living quarters. Which is why the captain had ordered all departments except engineering to work on a skeleton crew and everyone to rearrange their schedules to half-shifts so officers could return to their quarters to warm up.

Hugh and Paul had both been on shift when he announced it as ‘effective immediately’, so he expected Hugh to either be home already or walk through the door any minute. And unsurprisingly, he emerged from the bathroom in that moment, already in his pajamas, a blanket thrown over his shoulders. He looked cozy, and made Paul remember how absolutely frozen he felt.

 

“Hey.”

 

“How’s sickbay?” Paul asked as a greeting and threw his PADD onto a chair.

 

“Alright. Thanks to your donation we’re almost back at acceptable temperatures.”

 

Naturally, sickbay had been assigned priority, but they weren’t yet able to reconnect them to the circulation, so engineering had improvised portable heaters and calculated the ideal placement so they could treat their patients without further endangering them.

 

“Good.”

 

“Any progress?”

 

Paul sighed.

 

“We’re currently only on passive thermal control and a few loops that are still functioning – and we had to sacrifice some of them for the living quarters. We’re rejecting heat into _space_ because we can’t properly transport it.” He shook his head. “It should be enough to keep all systems and equipment within operating temperature range and most areas above zero, but it’s still far from a comfortable environment for either humans or fungi.”

 

“Will they manage?”

 

He took a moment to answer, trying to rub warmth into his hands, and before he knew it, Hugh had walked over and wrapped both of them in the blanket. He let it happen. He wasn’t usually big on cuddling, but he _was_ cold, and Hugh was comfortable, and it was probably scientifically justified, so he slowly allowed himself to relax.

 

“I don’t know. Right now I can’t do anything for them.”

 

“Hm,” Hugh said. He knew how important the supply was for the success of Paul’s work and how precarious this situation could become if it took damage. But his priority was another. If he wanted him to unwind before they had to be back at work, that was a lot easier to do once he was out of uniform. Also, he could literally feel the cool air radiating from it.

 

“You should change.”

 

“Yes.”

 

But Paul stayed unmoving for a moment longer, before taking a steeling breath and stepping away to open his jacket and shrug out of it, tossing it on the floor and then quickly stripping all the way when he noticed how incredibly low the temperatures still were.

After he had changed into his pajamas, he turned back and saw Hugh waiting with a second blanket.

 

“Seriously?”

 

“We have four hours to get warm and I intend to make the most of it,” he explained, and watched Paul’s expression shift with it.

 

“Oh, do you now?”

 

Hugh smirked. If Paul was making innuendos, his mood was better than expected.

 

“Well that’s not exactly what I had in mind, but if you’re up to it...”

 

Paul only considered it for a split second before shaking his head.

 

“It’s way too cold for that.”

 

And as if to prove his point, he closed the distance between them again and kissed Hugh on the lips, holding his face with frozen fingers and then deliberately shoving them under his shirt.

 

“Okay.”

 

To his credit, Hugh didn’t flinch and instead only tensed up, grabbed the blanket tighter and patiently waited for Paul to back off before burritoing him in it.

There was mild protest, which came as no surprise, but the cold won out once more and Paul threw himself onto the bed. Hugh followed suit, rolled up in his own blanket, and spent a while arranging their usual duvet over them. When he finished, he turned to face Paul.

 

“Are your hands okay though? That was seriously cold.”

 

“I’m fine.”

 

As that was his standard response to any inquiries after his health, it didn’t surprise him anymore when Hugh only fixed him with a look until Paul gave in and dug his hands out of his blanket-roll to put them in Hugh’s.

 

“What’s the verdict, dear doctor?” he asked once Hugh let go of his hands, and managed to even make the endearment sound annoyed.

 

“You’ll live.”

 

Paul scoffed and buried his hands back into the depth of his blanket.

 

“But if it’s that cold in engineering, maybe-”

 

“Working in gloves and woolen sweaters isn’t exactly within safety regulations.”

 

He pulled his legs towards him, attempting a fetal position, but he was to tightly wrapped to be able to bend his knees much. It was still cold inside his burrito because his body hadn’t yet warmed up all the air around him, so he moved around a bit more, trying to develop heat through friction.

 

“It should be, if you want to keep your fingers.”

 

“Hm.”

 

When moving didn’t help much, he decided to just roll towards Hugh, hoping he had body warmth to share, and ended up on his stomach, face pressed between their pillows. Perfect. This was how he’d stay for the next four hours.

 

 

 

* 1622 *

 

 

Not ten minutes later, there was a chirping sound coming from the other end of the room, and they both internally groaned.

 

A second chirp.

 

“I’m not moving.”

 

“I hate you.”

 

Nonetheless, Hugh unrolled himself from the blanket and maneuvered out from under the duvet to hurry over to the table where their PADDs lay. He grabbed both of them, returned to the bed and then threw Paul’s on the bedside table once he had discerned it was his own ringing.

 

“Culber.”

 

Paul tuned out when he realized it was medbay. For them, shorter shifts obviously called for more communication between staff, so it was probably just someone double-checking a decision with Hugh. It did take longer than expected though, so he closed his eyes and only opened them again when he felt Hugh lie back down beside him.

 

“Everything okay?” he asked the pillow, to be sure there wasn’t a problem with the heaters or anything else that would fall into engineering’s responsibility.

 

“Yeah.”

 

Hugh didn’t bother wrapping himself back into the blanket and instead pushed it down for extra cover of his feet, using his now freed arms to cuddle Paul. Or rather, stick them under his warm body. It took a moment for the cold to seek through and for Paul to realize what was happening, but when he did, he grumbled and tried to turn away clumsily, only to end up being spooned. With a cold hand under his side.

 

 

 

* 1649 *

 

 

“Stop _moving_! You’re letting in cold air.”

 

“Well, it’s not my fault you’re not very comfy!”

 

 

 

* 1654 *

 

 

Another chirp started up and this time Paul groaned out loud. He had finally started to enjoy this. Behind him, Hugh moved, probably leaning over to see their PADDs.

 

“It’s yours.”

 

He groaned again, but started crawling over Hugh’s body like a caterpillar, ending up on his back, legs still on the other side, but with his PADD in arm’s reach. Hugh only shot him a look, and he let out an almost amused sound before answering the call in the most serious tone imaginable.

 

“Stamets.”

 

Hugh was never not impressed with that.

 

It turned out to be some ensign from engineering, more or less in charge right now, informing Paul of the latest problem they’ve faced and asking for his orders on how to proceed. He gave a kind of general rundown of it, but since he didn’t have intricate knowledge of the details yet (and, frankly, it shouldn’t be very hard to figure out the rest with a basic understanding of physics), he couldn’t really do more, and he said as much. The ensign however didn’t back down.

 

“Maybe you could take a look at it, sir?”

 

“I’m off rotation for at least another 3 hours,” he said flatly.

 

“I know, I just feel like we could get this sorted out faster with you here.”

 

Paul glanced at Hugh, whose expression was a clear ‘don’t you dare’, but he already had no intention to go. With the way he was lying, his upper body was getting cold again and he was dying to get back under the duvet.

 

“I share that feeling. You wanna know what else I’m feeling? Cold. So why don’t you go and _do your job_. Send me an update in an hour.”

 

He disconnected the call without waiting for the tiny ‘yessir’ and quickly scrambled back to warmth, pulling his feet over Hugh to now lie fully at his right.

  
“Is it important?” he asked, and Paul knew from experience that he’d tell him to go if the ship was in immediate danger, and possibly only then. He could, of course, lie and get down there, work until everything was fixed, and it would certainly take them less time to get back to normal, but there were a few problems with that. a) He was a terrible liar and Hugh would see right through him. b) Any time saved would come at the risk of him freezing to death, and thanks to Hugh his priorities had shifted the tiniest bit towards self-preservation, even if he’d never admit to that, and c) He simply didn’t want to. So,

 

“Nothing’s about to blow up.”

 

“Well that’s reassuring.”

 

 

 

* 1733 *

 

 

“I need to pee.”

 

“ _No_.”

 

 

 

* 1801 *

 

 

Paul’s head jerked up.

 

“Give me my PADD I need to write something down.”

 

After his trip to the bathroom, he had chosen the shortest route back, which is why he was at Hugh’s left again. Who apparently wasn’t awake enough to process the request.

 

“What?”

 

“My PADD. I have an idea, I need to write it down.”

 

“Paul. You’re a genius, last I checked.”

 

He looked at Hugh, nonplussed.

 

“Yes. But this is the third idea I’ve had that might fix the system and I need to start writing them down or I risk forgetting the one that’ll turn out to work.”

 

He made grabby hands in front of his face to emphasize his demand and eventually Hugh complied.

 

“Thanks.”

 

His PADD was still on full brightness from when he used it as a makeshift flashlight earlier, so after he turned it on he had to squint his eyes and blindly try to turn it down before he was able to open a document, and by then, he had forgotten what he wanted to write. Hugh snorted.

 

“Shh,” Paul hissed, but simultaneously slid up to use Hugh’s shoulder as a headrest for a better angle which canceled out the harshness in it, before closing his eyes and nervously tapping the edge of his PADD with his index finger. Although it took him a moment, he managed to recall his ideas and started typing out a few half-sentences he hoped would suffice to help him remember the entirety of his reasoning.

While he was finishing, he noticed a new message.

It was Tilly, giving him the requested status update on engineering. He rolled his eyes. Bloody ensign couldn’t even do that himself. But at least Tilly had a functioning brain and managed to summarize the events adequately, if unfortunately also in too many words. Apparently, they had tried something similar to what he had just written down, so he had to check the results-

 

“Paul...” Hugh warned, probably still reading over his shoulder, and wrapped both arms around his middle.

 

“Yeah, lemme just...” he trailed off, scrolling through the attached data.

 

Hugh tightened his grip but otherwise stayed silent while Paul skimmed through the files and made a new annotation in his notes. Then he wrote up a reply, asking Tilly to do a few tests and send him the results, before he put down the PADD on his side of the bed and curled up towards Hugh again.

 

“Sorry.”

 

 

 

* 1824 *

 

 

“We don’t get to do this often enough.”

 

They were both mostly warmed up by now, only enjoying each others company, hearing each other’s heartbeat and feeling the rise and fall of their chests, appreciating their sheer existence. Being able to spent some time together without any obligations was rare, and Paul had to admit that it was… nice. Still, that didn’t mean he had to say it.

 

“What, huddling together for warmth like cavemen under a shitton of blankets?”

 

Hugh smiled. He could see Paul knew what he’d meant, so he just went with it.

 

“Yeah.”

 

 

 

* 1832 *

 

 

“I love you.”

 

Surprised by it’s unpromptedness, Hugh stopped carding his fingers through Paul’s hair and – when his brain finally caught up – shifted to place a kiss on his forehead.

 

“I love you too.”


End file.
